Hostname: page-component-68c7f8b79f-pksg9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-01-01T08:30:44.021Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Negation and nominalization in Kusunda

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2026

Mark Donohue ,
Bhojraj Gautam  and
Madhav Pokharel
Mark Donohue*
Affiliation:
The Australian National University
Bhojraj Gautam
Affiliation:
Tribhuvan University
Madhav Pokharel
Affiliation:
Tribhuvan University
*
[mark.donohue@anu.edu.au]
Get access

Abstract

Negative structures are generally assumed to be maximally accessible for verbal predicates, as evidenced by the requirement in many languages that nonverbal predicates be supported by a verb when negated. Indeed, the term ‘standard negation’ is used to refer to the negation of a declarative verbal clause, and yet this is at best highly restricted in Kusunda. We discuss the mood and nominalizing strategies that are employed to escape from the restrictions imposed by such a system.

Keywords

negationnominalizationirrealisKusundafieldwork

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Language , Volume 90 , Issue 3 , September 2014 , pp. 737 - 745
Copyright
Copyright © 2014 Linguistic Society of America

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Churchward, C. Maxwell. 1953. Tongan grammar. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Dixon, R. M. W. 1988. A grammar of Boumaa Fijian. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Donohue, Mark. 2013. Kusunda linguistics. Webpage. Online: http://kusunda.linguistics.anu.edu.au.Google Scholar
Grierson, George A. 1909. Linguistic survey of India, vol 3, part 1. New Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass.Google Scholar
Hodgson, Brian Houghton. 1848. On the Chépáng and Kúsúnda tripes of Népal. Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal 17. 650. 58.Google Scholar
Hodgson, Brian Houghton. 1857. Comparative vocabulary of the languages of the broken tribes of Nepal. Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal 26. 317–71.Google Scholar
Horn, Laurence R. 1989. A natural history of negation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Josephs, Lewis S. 1975. Palauan reference grammar. (PALI language texts Micronesia.) Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.Google Scholar
Kahrel, Peter, and van den Berg, René (eds.) 1994. Typological studies in negation. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.10.1075/tsl.29CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kaufman, Daniel. 2010. Greenberg's 16th slayed in the Bronx? Language universals and fieldwork in NYC. Handout, GSAS Workshop in Language Universals and Linguistic Fieldwork, Harvard University, April 13, 2010.Google Scholar
Miestamo, Matti. 2000. Towards a typology of standard negation. Nordic Journal of Linguistics 23. 65–88.10.1080/033258600750045787CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miestamo, Matti. 2005. Standard negation: The negation of declarative verbal main clauses in a typological perspective. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.10.1515/9783110197631CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miestamo, Matti. 2007. Negation: An overview of typological research. Language and Linguistics Compass 1. 5. 552–70.10.1111/j.1749-818X.2007.00026.xCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Payne, John R. 1985. Negation. Language typology and syntactic description, vol. 1: Clause structure, ed. by Shopen, Timothy, 197–242. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Pokharel, Madhav P. 2005. Strategies of pronominalization in Kusunda. Contemporary issues in Nepalese linguistics, ed. by Yadava, Yogendra, Bhattarai, Govind Raj, Lohani, Ram Raj, Prasain, Balaram, and Parajuli, Krishna, 189–92. Kathmandu: Linguistic Society of Nepal.Google Scholar
Rana, B. K. 2002. New materials on the Kusunda language. Paper presented to the 4th Round Table on the Ethnogenesis of South and Central Asia, Harvard University, May 11-13, 2002.Google Scholar
Reinhard, Johan G., and Sueyoshi, Toba. 1970. A preliminary linguistic analysis and vocabulary of the Kusunda language. A preliminary linguistic analysis and vocabulary of the Kusunda language: Summer Institute of Linguistics and Tribhuvan University, ms.Google Scholar
Rumsey, Alan. 1982. An intra-sentence grammar of Ungarinjin, north-western Australia. (Pacific linguistics B-86.) Canberra: Australian National University.Google Scholar
Van Driem, George. 2001. The languages of the Himalayas. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Watters, David E. 2005. Kusunda: A typological isolate in South Asia. Contemporary issues in Nepalese linguistics, ed. by Yadava, Yogendra, Bhattarai, Govind Raj, Lohani, Ram Raj, Prasain, Balaram, and Parajuli, Krishna, 375–96. Kathmandu: Linguistic Society of Nepal.Google Scholar
Watters, David, with Yadava, Yogendra P., Pokharel, Madhav P., and Prasain, Balaram. 2006. Notes on Kusunda grammar. (Himalayan linguistics archive 3.) [Originally published, Kathmandu: National Foundation for the Development of Indigenous Nationalities, 2005.].Google Scholar